Read Uncharted Frontier EZine Issue 12 Page 6

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  Plum Worship

  By Barbara Saxton

  I lurk in my yard, snapping photos of plums

  (or pluots, for those into fancy fruit names) framing

  still digital lives that may help me recall how these plump

  purplish beauties bent down the green branches, before birds,

  squirrels and God knows what else come to hurry

  the harvest. Soon enough, this same tree will shrink back

  to a wintry black spine; in my camera's eye, it can burgeon

  forever with life and free food that tastes better

  for growing on one's own piece of land.

  A plum falls, and I grab it, reveling at its round weight

  in my palm, content for a moment to imagine

  its sweet juiciness on my tongue. After all, my son

  planted this tree, and each year's precious harvest

  will nourish a shrine deep in this mother's belly,

  once so ripe, nearly bursting, with a being I had yet

  to meet and adore.